


moses made the drive (i was very glad we could share these nights)

by alwaysayes



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bisexual Noah Czerny, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mostly Canon Compliant, Obvious Major Character Death, i properly formatte this sorry i know it'll look SHIT on mobile, includes noahs death scene, noah is but a gentle boy, sad as fuck, whelk and noah arent roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysayes/pseuds/alwaysayes
Summary: “Dude, she’s just got this-” An inhale. “I don’t know. Aura about her. I’m in love with her aura.” He exhaled.“You’re not in love, just high.” Whelk said.“It may be a little bit of both, who knows.”But in all honesty, Whelk understood.





	moses made the drive (i was very glad we could share these nights)

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO HELLO HELLO! so at the beginning of this month, i challenged myself to write 500 words a day, and so far, i'm doing very well. i decided that if i did this, i would have to write about something i love very much, and boy, do i love noah czerny. so here is a very very sad fic about my boy, and this is just about half of it- the half where he's alive (its not exactly half, half would be 7500, but its close enough and i just finished the alive part, so like you know. im posting the whole alive part right now.)  
> the title is from brians song, by the cardboard swords. 
> 
> send all hate about my bad writing to @blinknoah on twitter, i appreciate any and all feedback!

**_BEFORE_ **

When Noah Czerny was a child, Halloween was his favorite. Ghosts at every turn, ghouls every time he closed his eyes- and he loved it. He had always loved dressing up, not only because it involved fake blood and gore, but because it gave him a chance to be something other than an Aglionby boy for a night. For once, he was no longer a private school snob- he was just a regular kid on a not-so-regular night. It was good. Every year he topped his costume from the last year. He started with basic costumes, vampires, zombies, mummies, the usual, but by the time he was fifteen, he graduated from those and moved onto better things. He decided to stop doing normal costumes and go for the outrageous. 

He would work on his costumes for weeks, gathering fabrics and thread and buttons, all the necessities. He would work for hours every afternoon, completely disregarding his homework, trying to finish his perfect costume as soon as possible. 

When he was fifteen, he was Mothman. And it suited him too well. 

When he was sixteen, his friends at the time declared that they had grown out of Halloween costumes, and that they should throw a party instead. Noah wondered if anyone would show up to a lame party thrown by lame pop punk kids (and nobody did). 

/

When Noah was seventeen, he decided he wanted to change. There were so many things he could change about himself- he could get a tattoo, he could cut his hair off, he could get 

colour contacts. But only one thing really appealed to him. 

On October 29th, Noah Czerny sat down in the master bathroom of his house (his parents were out of town- his mom would have a heart attack if she knew what he was doing) and bleached his almost black hair to a white blond colour. Barrington Whelk sat on his bathroom counter and watched as the bleach processed, talking mindlessly about something involving Welsh kings and ley lines and God knows what. 

Whelk was newer to Aglionby, he hadn’t gone there for as long as half the students in their year, but he picked up on things fast. He picked up on the oddness of Henrietta around the same time as well, ever since he moved there he had noticed more and more small oddities that occurred nowhere else he had ever lived.

“Rumour has it,” Said Whelk, “That whoever finds Glendower and wakes him up gets a favour.”

“Mmh.” Noah hummed as he rinsed out his hair in the bathtub.

“Yeah, it’s all really cool. It’s fascinating to think about. When I wake Glendower, I’m gonna ask him for-”

“Wait,” Noah gasped, pulling his head out from underneath the faucet. “Whomever wakes Glendower gets to ask a favour, you said?” 

Whelk nodded. 

“Yeah, why?” 

“No reason. I just think it’s really cool.” Noah went back to rinsing his hair. 

There was an eerie quietness about about the bathroom after that, where Whelk was contemplating what Noah was going to ask about, and where Noah was cursing himself for freaking out. The quietness hung over like the most suffocating fog, and it stayed like that until Adele opened the door.

“Dude. Noah. You  _ know _ Mom and Dad are gonna kill you, right?” She said upon seeing Noah’s wet blond hair.

“I mean, if they kill me they kill me.” He shrugged. 

“You’re way too casual, you know,” Adele said. “With the way you don’t care about your life. Especially after-”

“Don’t.” Noah said harshly. There were very few times that Noah would raise his voice at his younger sister. In an organized list, he had raised his voice at his sister three times:

  1. When she knocked over his model of the Great Wall of China that was due the next day, and he had to pull an all nighter to re-do it.
  2. When she scared him in the middle of the night (this one counts as one thing, but it has happened multiple times).
  3. When she brought up his dead best friend. 



Ezekiel Marah was a kind soul.  _ Ezekiel _ meant strong, and he held to his name. He was a star athlete, the fastest runner Aglionby had ever seen. He persevered through things he never even should have had to deal with- because although he was a model student at Aglionby, his parents pretended he never existed, for they were too lost in their own world of blowing him off for the elaborate parties they would hold. 

If it weren’t for the parties his parents threw, he never would have met Noah. 

One fateful night, when he was fourteen, Noah Czerny arrived at one of his parents’ masquerade balls. Dressed in a suit and an elaborate mask, he braced himself as he held the hand of whatever girl his parents had told him to take to the party- Freda something or other. The second he walked in, he locked eyes with the only other tortured teenage boy in there. And from that moment they clicked. 

Noah and Ezekiel spent every moment together. There were moments when they would be at the small playground in the center of Henrietta and Noah would turn around for five seconds and he would turn back around to see Ezekiel hanging upside down by his feet on the jungle gym, somehow stuck. And there were other moments where Noah would be too late, too late to save the hanging figure of his best friend. 

So when Adele mentioned him, it brought all the pain back. But Whelk didn’t know that, he didn’t know what favour Noah would ask of Glendower. Because if Noah ever woke him, he would ask him to bring Zeke back. 

Adele quietly left the room. 

“What does she mean? Ever since what?” Whelk asked him quietly, aware that it was a sore subject. 

Noah had gone still upon Adele’s words, sitting in shock with the cold water still running in the claw-footed bathtub. He was smaller than ever.

“Ever since nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

Noah had never feared death. It was natural, it happened to everyone. There was just something about not having Zeke at his side anymore that woke him up and made him fear everything he had never even thought of. He was afraid of things that he used to embrace. Zeke once told him that things only scared him if he let them, and oh God did he let them. 

Whelk never knew Zeke- he never did and never would. He would grow to know him in small tidbits he found out around town, from looking at the trophies, from the one year memorial service of his death, from the little things Noah let slip. Every once in awhile, Noah would talk about some funny situation, only pausing to remember that there was no Zeke to cut into his story with an edgy anecdote. But Whelk would never really know who Ezekial Marah was, but it would be okay. He didn’t need to know anyway. 

Noah tried to shrug off the conversation. 

/

Noah never really knew what to do when his mother came home that weekend. 

/

The skate park was different. It would always be different without Zeke, but that was given. Noah went anyway, dragging a new edgy raven boy at his side each time. They would drive there in his Mustang with the windows down, music playing louder and louder as they rode through the streets of Henrietta, almost like a scene out of a cliche teen movie, but all that was missing was a love interest.  And then one came into the scene. 

Her name was Laura. She had purple hair that hit just below her chin with sharp bangs that fell just above her eyebrows. She smelled like pot smoke and vanilla, and she was more enticing than a hurricane. When she opened her mouth her voice was rough but at the same time so very gentle. Noah sighed at the sight of her from across the skate park, though they had never even talked.

Noah would talk about her over a shared joint with Whelk, sitting in the treehouse he insisted his father build him when he was a child. 

“Dude, she’s just got this-” An inhale. “I don’t know. Aura about her. I’m in love with her aura.” He exhaled. 

“You’re not in love, just high.” Whelk said.

“It may be a little bit of both, who knows.”

But in all honesty, Whelk understood.

/

The first time Laura Head spoke to Noah, he was almost sure he was dead. He was facedown on the concrete of the skate park, nose bloody and hands sweaty.

“Kudos to you for trying that trick, honestly man. I couldn’t have even attempted to pull that off.”

Noah tried to sit up as she spoke to him, pushing his chest off the concrete in a push up position.

“Thanks. I, uh, you have, uh, really good technique, especially for-”

“If you’re about to tell me I skate well for a girl I’m actually gonna kill you.”

“No, I was gonna say you skate well for someone who picked it up so recently. You’ve only been coming here for what, like, a year?”

“Oh. Yeah. Something like that.” She smacked the gum in her mouth. “I’m Laura Elizabeth Head. You can just call me Laura, or Liz, or Leh. I don’t really care.”

“I’m Noah Czerny.” Noah said in a daze. 

“I know.” She grinned, and with that, she was gone.

/

“Dude, I need to know if that really happened.” Noah said in his car. The windows were down and blink-182 was blasting over the shitty stereo.

“It totally did. The girl you’ve been pining over for months is totally into you.” Whelk was in just as much shock as he was.

“Holy fuck.” The rest of the car was was silent from the two boys aside from the loud music and occasional humming. The wind was blowing, and it almost felt as if Zeke was in the passenger’s seat again.

/

The first time Barrington Whelk ever met Noah, it was in very unfortunate circumstances. Noah was sitting outside of a gas station, face in his hands. He was dressed in a suit- the same suit he wore the night he first met Zeke. His chest was heaving, heavy sobs that wracked through his entire body. A bottle of something unidentifiable sat at his side. It was raining.

As Whelk pulled into the gas station, his eyes found the sad boy sitting on the concrete. He didn’t know what was happening. 

When he got out of his car, he walked over to him. 

“Uh are  you- is there anything I can do?”

“Fuck, uh,” Noah heaved. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Are you sure? I can like, drive you home if you-”

“I don’t want pity.” Noah spat, trying so hard to keep his composure. Loss was so hard. It was so fucking hard to lose the one person he had to live for. And he didn’t know what to do.

“I’m not pitying you, man. I don’t even know who you are.” Whelk was shrugging.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

In that moment, Noah looked the most dead he ever was when he was alive. He was hurting so goddamn bad- not saving Zeke was his only regret. 

At the funeral itself, he was in so much pain. He tried not to cry but oh god, it was so hard. As he delivered the eulogy he was choking on his own voice.

_ When I met Ezekiel, we were basically kids. We were dumb teens who didn’t know what we wanted, and we were both ignorant and wanted nothing to do with anything involving our parents. And so when we went to that party and I met him, it felt like fate. It felt like fate was pushing us together, pushing our two ignorant teenage souls together to maybe become something more than what we were. And so when I walked into his bedroom, the same way I always did when I came to his house if he wasn’t at school and I saw him, my heart dropped into my stomach. And then I saw his note, his note in his stupid fucking illegible handwriting, saying that he knew I would be the one to find him and that I didn’t need to give up and that he knew I would be okay without him- and my heart dropped from my stomach to my goddamn feet. Am I allowed to say goddamn in a church? I’m sorry. But what I’m trying to say is, I wish this were a best man’s speech instead of my best friend’s eulogy. I don’t know what to say, but God do I miss him. I miss my best friend, and there won’t be a moment that I don’t in the future. I miss Ezekiel Montague Marah, and that is never going to change. He was my best friend, and even in death, I will always have my best friend.  _

__ But the truth was (and always would be) that they weren’t just friends. They were more than that at the core, they were so much more. 

The first time Noah Czerny had ever been kissed, it was on the trunk of his private school asshole car. He was sitting on the edge of the trunk, hands gripping tightly, so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The keys were still in, music blaring on the speakers, some generic pop punk about hating where you’re from. His head was down.  It was quiet night in the deep woods of Henrietta, something almost magical about it. He took a deep breath.

Zeke stood opposite of him, a cigarette bitten between his stark white teeth. 

“You know, the more nervous you are, the more awkward it is.” He said. 

“I’m not nervous, Z. I just. I don’t know.”

“If you aren’t nervous, then put it into action.” Zeke said in a soft voice. To anyone else it would have sounded judgemental, but Noah knew him too well.

“Put your cigarette somewhere besides your mouth and maybe I will.” Noah tried for subtlety but failed. He was loosening his grip on his car as his anxiety began to ease with Zeke’s smile.

“Fine.” Zeke smirked. He dropped the cigarette in the dirt and stomped it out. 

“Are you gonna kiss me or just look at me like that?” Noah asked.

“Depends. What do you want?”

“Fucking Christ, Ezekiel, what do you think?”

“So what’s your answer, No-no?”

“Don’t ask me stupid questions.” 

It was silent between them for a moment.

“Kiss me.” Noah said quietly. 

The first time Noah Czerny was ever kissed, it was Ezekiel Marah, because he would always be his first everything.

/

Laura was in the passenger seat. Of Noah’s car. And he wasn’t dreaming. Her hair caught the moonlight as they drove, and he couldn’t help but think he could do that forever. He could drive around with her in the passenger seat for the rest of his life, and he thought maybe it would be like the first time he and Ezekiel kissed. Just maybe. 

“Noah,” She said. “I know you’ve been through a lot this year.”  She was treading carefully with him, maybe the one person who still was. 

“Yeah, I have. Fucking hell, I have.”

“I want you to tell me five things I don’t know about you.” She said, glancing over at him.

“Lemme pull into the Sonic first.” He responded, and she nodded.

When they pulled in, Noah stayed quiet except to order their food. He was avoiding what she asked and they both knew it.

“I can start.” She said to him once they got their food.

“Okay, go.” 

“I moved from Oregon to Henrietta about two years ago and just now started skating here. I have blue eyes but wear brown contacts. My favorite band is The Academy Is…, and I’ve seen them four times. I live with my older brother,.”  She looked over at him in the dimly lit car. “And my first kiss was some random girl I met at a party.”

“I bleached my hair to piss off my parents. My house has eleven bedrooms. I have ADHD. When I told my mom I was bisexual she cried and hugged me and told me it was okay because she saw how nervous I was. My younger sister is my favorite person on earth right now. And my first kiss was Ezekiel Marah.”  

“Oh. We’re both floating in that same queer boat, huh?” Laura laughed into her corndog.

“I suppose so.”

“I wanna know about Ezekiel. I know next to nothing about him, and he was important to you. Tell me about him.”

“It’s not many times where someone wants to know about your ex on your first date.” Noah grinned.

“Come on, man.”

“Fine.” The boy took a deep breath.

“First of all, he  _ hated  _ being called Ezekiel. It was Zeke or nothing with him, and the only times I ever called him Ezekiel were to piss him off. He would always say that Ezekiel was the name of a poet and he was nowhere near that- he was just a boy. He was the kindest person I’ve ever met. His smile kind of lit up rooms, but at the same time he was a raging asshole. The first time he kissed me he was being  _ such  _ an asshole about it, but that really didn’t stop me from wanting it. He knew me so well that If I were a language he’d be fluent in it. I miss him still.”

It had been a year since Zeke’s death, but sometimes Noah still dreamt of finding his body again. His dreams would start off on some surreal note but they always ended with him walking into Zeke’s room and seeing him there. He still woke up sobbing each time. 

“He sounds wonderful.” Laura said after a quiet moment.

Noah slurped his milkshake.

/

Laura Head was an enigma compared to anyone Noah had ever met before. It isn’t that she was closed off, it was quite the opposite. She was so open- if you asked her a question she would answer as honestly as she could. She would smile a small smile, almost like she was about to laugh every time she spoke.   Her smile was like the sun- bright and shining white, casting light on anyone who dared to look. Noah never knew anyone like her before.

The first time she came over to his house, she was an unexpected guest. It was very late into the night (or maybe early in the morning, the way time works is confusing), and Noah was sitting on his windowsill. The Head family didn’t live too far from his, only a few streets away, so it wasn’t that hard of a journey at night when Laura rode her bike from her house to his. She had been outside of it, but she had never been inside his family’s picture perfect home. He sat quietly on his windowsill as her bike rolled up his sidewalk and against the wall of his house. 

“Hey stranger,” He called down to her from his perch. 

“Hey,” She looked up to him from where she stood in his yard. 

“You can come in through the back door, it’s always open.” He could see Laura’s hair bob as she nodded a yes.

He made his way down to the living room as Laura made her way behind the house to go through the back. When she walked in through the back door, his heart was thumping so fast he thought it might fall out of his chest. The living room was dark except for a television that someone in his family had left on, probably his youngest sister. He led the way to his room. 

Laura was sat opposite from him on his bed. His heart was beating faster and faster- what do you say to the beautiful girl who was sitting on your bed at three am? 

“Do you wanna watch a movie?” He asked. 

“What are my options?”

“I have uh… Donnie Darko, Edward Scissorhands, Pulp Fiction, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and-”

“Rocky Horror.” Laura grinned. 

Noah nodded and put the DVD in the player. 

Once the movie had started and they were settled in, everything was falling into place. He had a person again, a best friend. He was content, and when they both fell asleep midway through the movie, neither of them cared about how mad their respective guardians would be when they woke up.

/

Noah woke up to his sister banging on his door. Laura was still fast asleep next to him, in her oversized t-shirt and threadbare pajama pants.  He rolled out of the bed, trying his best to not disturb her, and tiptoed over to his bedroom door, stepping out into the hallway.

“What is it, Adele?” He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Mom wanted me to tell you that she had to go into work today, and that breakfast is on the table.”

“All that fuss for nothing, dude?” 

“Yeah,  _ dude.” _

Noah rolled his eyes at his sister, though it came across more fondly than he intended. Adele raised an eyebrow at him.

“You seem happy.” She said to him.

“I am.” 

“I would ask why, but I  _ really  _ don’t wanna kill your vibe, so I’m just gonna… My friends wanna meet up at Waffle House, and Abby is at the Sargents, so you have the house to yourself. I’ll see you when I get home.” With that, Adele spun on her heels and walked back downstairs, leaving Noah a tad disoriented. 

When he walked back into his room, Laura was beginning to wake up. Her hair was a tangly mess and her eyes were still sleepy, but she was still beautiful. He wanted to wake up like that forever, even if it was an adolescent love.

/

There was something magical about driving at night. Maybe it was driving past the gas stations with the neon signs that flickered on and off and on and off and on and off and on again. Maybe it was the way the air felt different. Maybe it was the winking stars. Noah wasn’t sure which of those it was, but maybe it was all of them.

There was something even more magical about driving through Henrietta at night. All of the small town charm leaked through into something almost supernatural and he never really knew if he wanted to come back once the night was ending, although he always did.  Laura thought the same thing.

The nights they spent driving were far different from the nights she spent driving with her brother from Jordan Valley, Oregon to Alturas, California to visit her brother’s girlfriend. There was something different about the west, something in the air. In Virginia, there was a distinct feeling that she didn’t know how to pin down. Something magical.

Their night drives were always very serene. Noah would open the top of his car and their hair would be blown around in the wind as music played softly over the speakers- at night, it was never anything loud, typically something like The Smiths or New Order, never really anything as loud as what he listened to normally. His nights with Laura were almost as serene as the nights he spent exploring the woods with Whelk, the nights were he was always almost certain that something was going to come out of his search for Glendower. But he was never the same person around Whelk that he was when he was with Laura, he was more guarded, never letting him know what was on his mind- a complete enigma. When he was with Laura, he was an open book. Her problems were his and his were hers, all barriers down.  It wasn’t until one of their night drives that he found out about why she moved.

“Noah,” She said to him, speaking over the music.

“Yeah?” He responded, glancing over from the driver’s seat.

“Did I ever tell you what happened to my parents?” She said nervously, her hands finding the edge of her hoodie (which was stolen from Noah, but that didn’t matter). 

“No, but I’d be interested if you wanted to tell me.”

“Okay. Uh. I really don’t know how to say this. You know how I live with my brother? And we kind of just…. up and moved from Oregon to Virginia?” She looked down at her hands.

“Yeah?”

“Well. My brother is the closest thing I have to a father, I guess. I grew up with my mom and stepdad, but neither of them were really… that much. I mean, they were there, they paid for things and bought me stuff to shut me up, but like. They weren’t really parents, you know?” 

Noah nodded.

“And as much as they were there, they weren’t really there. They were kind of. Off the deep end? I guess? And my brother lived in Alturas, in California, which was only like a six hour drive away, which was close enough for me. But I lived in Jordan Valley- there’s literally like a population of 200 people there, which really is. Not much at all. And so everyone knew how bad they were- just nobody said anything. My brother is ten years older than me, and he grew up, you know, with my real dad, who I only ever met once. And I guess I just kind of… Became okay with my parents not being parents, and being shitty people. My mom was a drug addict and my stepdad was an alcoholic, so I kinda just became this little fucked up cocktail of a kid, and then my brother found out. And he was so mad at me for not telling him sooner, but like, it was the only kind of parenting I ever knew? This weird, distant, they didn’t care if I came home absolutely fucked up after a long night kind of parenting. And I thought that was how all parents were, because in Jordan Valley, nobody is really there, because there’s only 200 people, and all the farmers come through and go back again, and all the neighbours come and go, you know? So I never realized it wasn’t  how it was supposed to be. And so my brother found out, and then he got custody of me, but he wanted me to finish out the school year in JV, and so when my sophomore year ended, we moved here. Because it’s as far away from JV as he could find, and the schools here are good, and the environment here is good, and the worst thing that the Henrietta kids do is street race. So I’m here. And I’m better now. I’m more, now that I’m actually alive and not just a fuckin’ drone for my parents. So I’m better. And my brother is  _ such  _ a helicopter parent, fuck, but it’s better than what I had before. I love him to death, I really do. And I’ve never really had anyone who cared about me before, not the way you do, not the way he does, and it makes me feel like I matter.” Noah was silent. “You make me feel like I matter.”  

Noah’s heart lept into his throat. 

“You do matter.” He said. 

“Do I?”

“Yeah. You make me feel like I matter too. Nobody but Zeke ever made me feel like this, Laur.” 

“I think I’m in love with you, Noah. I don’t know what it feels like- but oh, God, it feels like I might be.” Noah was quiet again, thinking. 

He had a tendency to get lost in his own head, not necessarily confused, but just thinking sometimes. He was a dreamer on occasion- thinking of everything he ever knew, dreaming of what could have been if Zeke didn’t die on him. 

“Noah?” Laura said, after the driver was quiet for a few minutes. “Can you say something?”

“I think I am too.” He said. “In love with you, that is.” 

The drive was silent after that, until he dropped her off back home.

/

 

Barrington Whelk had always been a jealous man. Jealous of his friends’ wealth, jealous of his friends’ devotion, jealous of their love. It was only a matter of time until he was jealous for more. Growing up he had been told less is more, so his parents never bought him anything, never really spoiled him the way the rest of his friends were spoiled. He envied Noah especially, not just his wealth and devotion, but he envied how held himself. It wasn’t in high esteem, he wasn’t cocky, but the way he was composed in front of others in a way Whelk could never be. The way he spoke, clear and concise, even through moments of excitement. Noah was everything Whelk longed to be- rich, powerful, and intelligent. He was already rich and intelligent, he just needed the final component. And when his father was revealed as a tax scammer and his family lost all the money they had, he could only think of one way to get it back. Waking Glendower and getting his favor was his only chance for everything he wanted, and if someone had to die for it to happen, then so be it. 

The ritual to wake Glendower was simple enough. There was your typical ritualistic bullshit, you had to say a certain thing and what not, but there was also a sacrifice involved. And if someone had to die for Whelk to get what he wanted, then someone would have to die. And he knew who it would be.

Noah Czerny was the perfect picture of Whelk had always wanted to be growing up. And if sacrificing him would be what it took to become his perfect person, Noah would be the perfect sacrifice. An eye for an eye. A man for a boy. The heart for the heartless, mercy for the merciless. And it all fell into place.

“Noah!” Whelk yelled into the phone one evening. 

“ _ Laur, gimme a sec. It’s Whelk. _ Yeah?”   
“I figured out how to wake Glendower.” He said.

“Are you fucking serious right now? Oh my God-”

“Noah, this is so goddamn groundbreaking, we should try it-”

“How do we do it? Oh my God, this is so amazing, holy shit-”   
“Meet me in the forest and we can do it tonight, I-”   
“Can we wait? Laura and I are out right now.”

“Oh my God. You are putting a  _ legendary discovery  _ that can  _ prove a legend is real  _ on hold because you can’t keep it in your pants?” Whelk sighed in disbelief. 

“You can fuck off. Skip school tomorrow. Meet me there then, okay? Ten in the morning.” 

“I’ll see you then.”

“Goodnight, Whelk.” Noah hung up. He walked back into his room.

“What’d he want this time?” Laura asked.

“He thinks he cracked what we were trying to do, but I don’t know.” 

“As long as you’re not really in any danger, I guess you’re good, right?”

“Whelk would never put me in danger, Laur.”   
“I know, I know. I’m just. Worried about you a little bit. You guys are becoming more and more obsessed with this, but you won’t even tell me what it is.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. But he trusts me to not tell anyone, including you.”

“You would tell me if it were dangerous, right?”

“You know I would. Please don’t worry about me. All you have to do about this to help me prepare is sleep in the same bed as me and wake up to me, so you’re the last person I see when I go off on this stupid quest, okay?” Noah huffed and fell back against his bed, and Laura dropped a kiss on his head. 

“I’m sorry, No. I’m just, so damn frustrated.” She breathed, dropping her head on his shoulder.

“I know. I am too, believe me.”

“I just don’t really wanna talk about this anymore. How is everything going aside from your mysterious adventure?” 

“Well, my mom keeps going on business trips, and my sisters keep doing wild shit- I mean. Adele has been. Not Abby. Abby’s like, ten. But Adele told me she was smoking with her friends, which was kinda shocking, but also not really. I mean, I smoke, so like, what’s wrong with her doing it, you know?”  Noah was saying, but Laura was distracted. There was something comforting about the sharp line of his body against the soft line of hers, and she liked it. She liked it a lot.

“Noah,” She said. “Remember that time, about three or four months ago when I said I might be in love with you?” 

Noah tried his best to nod with her head on his shoulder. 

“Well. I uh. Think I may be in love with you. For sure. Like. I am in love with you. A lot. And I uh. Just wanted to tell you.”  She picked her head up from his shoulder and turned to look at him.

“I love you too.” He pressed a kiss between her eyebrows and she leaned against him and into his arms. 

“Don’t get hurt tomorrow. Please don’t.” She said gently. Noah stroked her hair and pulled her closer.

“I won’t. I promise you that, Laur.” 

And they laid back and pulled each other close, and fell asleep together for the last time. 

/

In the morning, when Laura was leaving his house in clothes that didn’t belong to her, Noah’s heart sunk into his stomach. Something was going to happen to him, and he knew it. He didn’t want his face to slip and reveal to her, so he just kissed her on the cheek and sent her on her way. She was wearing his favorite t-shirt, an Iron Maiden shirt his dad had bought him for his birthday, and his big black hoodie that he wore ninety percent of the time. She was wearing his ring as well, the one he always wore to fidget with when he got hyper. It was small and silver, hanging on a loose chain around her neck. Everything that mattered the most on the person that mattered the most to him. As he got in his car to drive to the woods to meet Whelk, he was wearing his uniform, as he told his mom he had exams and didn’t need to go to school until later.  _ Imagine how lame it would be if I died in my fucking uniform,  _ he laughed to himself. It was a ridiculous thought- he wasn’t going to die, he was just overreacting to the anxiety in his stomach. 

When he pulled into the spot where Whelk said to meet him, he felt his stomach drop out of his body.  _ Why does it feel so wrong this time?  _ He asked himself that over and over again- it felt like he had never been there before, like it wasn’t the same woods he had been to millions of times already. Like it was becoming something else, molding into some weird thing that it was not. But he shrugged it off- it was just a forest, what bad could it do to him? 

He wondered if Laura felt like something was off when she was leaving, but he would never know. 

When he turned around, Whelk was standing there.

“Noah! Hey, I was wondering when you would get here.” He said.

“Dude, it’s literally barely ten am, that’s when I said, right?” Noah responded, a tad disoriented.

“But Noah, the ritual is almost over.” 

“Dude, you started it without me? How long have you been at this? What’s left to do?” Noah asked, kind of mad, but at least it kept him out of the danger he was worried about.

“All that’s left is a sacrifice.” 

“Dude, what the fuck? I’m not killing an animal for you- I’m vegetarian, cruelty free, don’t come at me with this bullshit, I’m-” 

And at that second, he felt something collide with his face. In the moment where he could see, he identified it as the skateboard he left at Whelk’s house the last time he was there. And then he blacked out.  His body was convulsing on the ground of the woods, right behind his car, shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking, and seizing and seizing and seizing. It lasted for almost twelve minutes. And then he was dead.

It was Monday, the 31st of October, 2005. And Noah Czerny was dead in the woods, and nobody would ever find him. And Barrington Whelk would never wake Glendower. 

/

When Adele got home from school that day, she searched for her brother. And she called Laura. And she called Whelk. And she called the hospital. And she called her mother. Nobody had seen him since that morning. 

When she called Laura and asked if she had seen him, she said no, she hadn’t seen him since she left the house that morning, why? And Adele’s hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped the telephone. 

Noah was missing, and if they didn’t find him in the next days, they really never would. 

/

  
  
  
  


  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hi i hope you enjoyed! part 2 will be posted sometime around halloween!!! i hope you guys enjoy this ive been working really hard on it because im not really that confident in my writing. eeee again find me on twitter @blinknoah and also on tumblr @stantaire


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